A Beginning
by Avagrabo
Summary: One-shot, Shounen-ai, and a wee bit of cursing. A rabid plot bunny is slain, as Duo finally gets around to telling Heero how he feels about him. RR please.


A Beginning (Written to more music than you can possibly imagine, the winner by plurality is Rammstein, Herzeleid is the best album ever)

(I own absolutely nothing, although it would have helped if I hadn't blown my cash on that Excel Saga DVD today, only to give it to a friend after watching onceah well, it was worth it. Don't sue, you won't get anything.)

He cut his hair, that bastard. I had always liked it the way it was, messed and wild and long and free. I spent a goodly amount of my time frolicking in my imagination running my hands through it. It was always smooth and soft...

Of course, in my imagination he also smiled, something I liked even more than the hair. It was a quiet kind of smile, but it was his, and it was mine because in my mind I was the one who put it there on his face, below the cold blue eyes and dripping brown bangs.

He never smiles in real life, though. Wish he wouldif absence does, indeed, make the heart grow fonder, I'd probably die of fondness the first time I saw those lips twist upward.

I'd love to go do my best right now, I mean how hard could getting a smile out of someone be? There's just one wee little problem. It's in my pants. And in a way missing from my pants, although if you think about it that way it's also missing from my chest.

I do have the hair though. Might not help a damn bit, but it's all I really have going for me in that department.

The point is, we're both guys. Of the male gender. And as far as I know only one of us doesn't mind, and that would be me. Duo Maxwell, god of death, Gundam pilot extraordinaire. And fag. Apparently.

He's the only guy I look at like this, but he's also the only person I look at like this, so who really knows? God, I hate being a guy. Well there are some ups, and even being a girl might not help me with the human ice cube who's freezing to the seat across the room from me, but I need all the help I can get.

It's not just lust, dammit. I know you think it is, maybe you lust after him too. Bitch. He's mine to drool over. But not ONLY because of the wonderful way the spandex plays and stretches when he bends over, or the slightly shorter but no doubt still soft hair. Not even the hard and lithe body that is probably as supple and warm as it looks.

It's because I love a challenge, and I love helping people, and I love spreading happiness, and seducing Heero falls under all three categories. I know about the training, how it was meant to eliminate all the human being that lies underneath the perfect soldier, but I know it didn't work. He's a person, he has weaknesses and emotions and I've seen them and I love them. Because they're more his and him than he is himself most of the time.

The idea of all that anger and skill turning to love and passion in a second, of him crushing his lips against mine and us growing and living and loving together consumes me. It's an impossible dream, but it has my life wrapped around it's little metaphorical finger.

Let's review: we're both guys, he was cruelly conditioned to be an emotionless Perfect Soldier ™ or whatever, and in a couple hours we'll be split up and hidden forever to protect the secrets of the pilots' identities. In those hours, before our I.D.s are ready, I need to make him love me even a fraction of the amount that I love him.

It's the kind of thing so wonderfully crazy that if you mentioned it to anyone I know they'd automatically think of me.

Heero is sitting on the padded benches as only he can, as though he were supposed to be at attention. It's almost a surprise he isn't saluting. He really does need my help, we're finally FINISHED with wars and he can't relax like everyone else has wanted to for years?

It really sums my mission up. He needs something in his life besides fighting and killing and hatred and I want it to be me.

I'm not even done with the reasons I want him, am I? I love his intensity, the way he eliminates everything that isn't related to the mission, and concentrates all he has on the problem at hand. I still remember him blasting that shelter, pieces flying off Wing Zero, and he gives it a third shot even though he knows that in atmosphere it will tear the hell out of him. 

How could I not love this guy? He's saved me and everyone else in the Earthsphere's asses a dozen times over at least, from death or tyranny. And half the time it seems like he's TRYING to throw his life away in the process.

I want to teach him to value himself the way I value him. No one really sees him as a person anymore, least of all him, but (_A/N: *Kills roach. Does victory dance. Dog looking frightened*_) I KNOW he's real. He feels, dammit.

I wish he felt for me

It's time. No more delays, no more excuses, if I don't do it now, it's all gone, all for nothing. My hands won't stay still. When I try to stop them the rest of me twitches. It's incredible, really. The only person I think I've ever really loved like this, and my single shot at making him return these feelings is in about five seconds. Four. Three. Two. One.

Zero.

I'm standing up, but it's like a video game, in the third person, I can see myself walking over to him, but that's not really me, is it? Is it me sitting down next to him in his corner? I don't know, I'm jumping out of my skin and apparently my head about this. Everything is like someone else is feeling and seeing it.

"Whatcha thinking, Heero?" Stupid question, really. But I want to know. And YOU try admitting your deepest love to your comrade in arms and closest friend in the world when he's been trained ruthlessly from his youth never to have feelings or emotions. Go ahead. I dare ya. Tell me if you think of anything clever.

"Hn." My body and soul are crushed. He hates me and I'm a doomed failure in life.

Now I'm just overreacting. Damn. But he's talking now, and to me every word is the single most important word in my entire life as soon as it leaves his lips.

"About what it will be like. Out there. What I'll do, without fighting and war and Wing."

What about me? You could do me! I almost say it, but it's the second most monumentally stupid thing that comes to mind, after You could do Wufei'.

For once, the idea of that doesn't make me laugh. Bad sign, really.

I'm going to say it, before I get to excited and just keel over or have a coronary. I'm unattached again, floating as I watch big, fuzzy metaphorical dice cast and Rubicons crossed. 

Now, there's no point looking back.

"I've got a feelings for-a lot of feelings-you. Heero. I've got a lot of feelings, for you Heero." I finally spit out. Of all the times to get tongue tied in my life

He might be digesting this, but I can't really tell. He's still sitting the same way, although looking towards me now with blank, deep eyes. He knows what he's thinking, but he's the only one.

He still isn't talking, which means that whenever our I.D.s are finished it will be a relief for him, to get out of the room with the fag. Or possibly out of the room with the joker, or the idiot, Duo Maxwell. I'm not really sure which would be worse, an impersonal hate for what I am, or a personal hate for who I am.

But either way I want to kiss someone before my life, in a metaphorical if not physical sense, ends, so I do.

Rolling across my right hip to lie directly on him, I press my lips against his and try to get everything out of it I can. All the feeling, all the significance of putting my mouth against the mouth I love.

Heero doesn't see it coming, apparently, but as much as I would treasure the memory of the look on his face for the remainder of my pathetic existence, I keep my eyes closed. I was going to try and tongue him, but it seems unlikely that even shock would keep the Perfect Soldier™ still long enough for that. Plus I might come back minus a tongue.

So I just press for all I'm worth, and savor the moment until he pushes me away.

And savor.

And savor.

And savor.

Why isn't he pushing? I'm not complaining, but even though I'm not sure there's really a point anymore I DID plan on breathing again eventually. So even though in dreams the kiss doesn't end until I wake up, my lungs force my lips to disengage.

Heero's eyes are closed, but now they open again, and I want to kiss him all over again, they're FULL now, full of all the godamn emotion I was so sure wasn't ever going to be there, and the life I was afraid he had lost.

So I do, and he still doesn't push me away until I have to break off myself for another gasp of air. Shuddering, I let it out, the gust ruffling his shortened bangs.

His expression is so new and unfamiliar it makes me smile as I regard him. "Hi," I say. "Hi Heero."

Something truly wonderful happens to his face, the ends of his mouth turning up and the skin around his eyes changing subtly. A moment ago I would have called it acting, but now I'm not so sure.

It might even be a smile.

"Hi Duo," He returns, and my spirit flutters with my heart.

"I love you, Heero. I love your body and your mind and your heart and-"

He cuts off my in my opinion rather elegant and well-practiced in the crumpled remnants of a dozen or more unsent letters in shredders and incinerators around the universe profession of truest love by a far more eloquent expression of his feelings. Maybe eloquent isn't the word, he nearly actually BRUISED my lips, but it was very expressive and got his point across very well, especially the bit where he licked my lips, running his tongue along the crack between them.

He's so hungry, so needy, pressing against me, that I melt in his arms. When he finally leans away I'm not entirely sure I'm still a virgin. There have been honeymoons, month long trips to the Bahamas and such with secluded beach houses and horny newlyweds with handcuffs that have been less intimate than the minute or less I spent swapping spit with the greatest human being I know.

He's always been quiet, but his actions are as loud as my words, and my words constantly get praise based on volume and consistency.

So it is now when he gently shoves me off of him and stands, opening the door to the room we were told to wait in. "Would you like to come with me, Duo? Find the meaning of life in peacetime?"

I stand and follow, grinning in what I'm sure is an idiotic way even for me. (_A/N: Nearly drop sword on laptop. Must be getting late._) "I think I know the meaning, but it would take a fight to make me NOT follow you."

"I would win," He says absentmindedly, but he's smiling, and I know that he just made his first joke.

There will be lot's of firsts coming up I guess. But for all of the rest of them it'll be two on one, because I don't think I'm ever letting Heero out of my sight again.

We walk out of the door, and the building, and into our own protective anonymity. We don't need any governmental agencies, after all. We'll hide somewhere for a while, I'll teach him the meaning of life at peace.

Underneath the Perfect Soldier, there's another Heero, the one I love. And I'm the luckiest person in the world if that Heero really does care about me the way I care about him.

Our story doesn't have an end. It's just a beginning. I just hope it will be long. And I KNOW it will be good.

(Bloody plot bunny. My perverted, withered excuse for a brain says that there's another, much lighter one-shot coming soon. Whee. I can imagine the celebration. For the record, the title was the hardest bit of the entire story, and the one I'm most unhappy with. But I suppose a mediocre story deserves a mediocre title. Well, I need to go do the Mexican Hat Dance in the rain (You think I'm kidding, don't you?), so I'm out. L8r all. Love ya' Koishii!)


End file.
